


Cuba Libre

by Caissa



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22595083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caissa/pseuds/Caissa
Summary: Will and Hannibal try to make it work in Cuba after the fall.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 10
Kudos: 63
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Cuba Libre

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DreamerInSilico](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamerInSilico/gifts).



Will ties the _Orfeo_ up at the dock, the small boat bobbing in the blue green waters. He hauls his catch out of the boat, each fish landing on the wooden planks with a satisfying thud. There’s a good amount of snapper, and a large sea bass he thinks Hannibal will be pleased with. The fishing in Santa Ynez had been a bit hit or miss, feast or famine, which tended to frustrate his companion, and increasingly even Will himself. He considers himself a simple man, but there is a limit to the amount of beans and rice he is willing to eat.

His fellow fishermen look approvingly at his catch. One lets out a low whistle, while a few shoot daggers at him with their eyes. Their envy makes Will feel guilty. To them he would always be a wealthy foreigner—a _Yanqui—_ playing at being a fisherman. “Buenas dias,” he says in an awkward mutter.

“Buenas dias,” they echo back, some nodding in respect. Their respect is not for him, but for Hannibal, Will knows.

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices a nondescript man in shirtsleeves and trousers watching him from beyond the line of palm trees. He can feel the man’s gaze burn at him even through his dark sunglasses. He makes Will feel uneasy, more than just his normal paranoia. Will pretends not to notice and begins to trudge uphill toward home.

Will winds his way through Santa Ynez’s colonial streets. Even after six months here, he still marvels at the candy-colored buildings ringing the plaza in pistachio, azure, and rose. The people, too, in their bright clothes—a woman in a lime green halter top winks at him as he passes by. He blushes in spite of himself. The people of Santa Ynez seem to glow, their skin soaking up the warmth of the Cuban sun. Will just feels sunburnt and sweaty most of the time, his too pale skin shrinking from the harsh light of day. He's more comfortable in the moonlight.

Their home is not much to look at from the street, a single door and metal bars over the windows, its faded plaster chipping. It is built in the traditional Spanish style, and always feels bigger on the inside than it appears. He finds Hannibal in the open courtyard, picking mangoes right from the tree.

There’s an annoyance in the way his fine fingers snap the fruit from the branches and Will wonders what has happened in his absence. But when Hannibal turns his eyes on him he is all warmth and smiles. “Hello, Will,” he says.

Will holds up his fish. “Got us a sea bass. Want me to gut it?”

Hannibal looks at him approvingly. “A fine fish. I’ll prepare it myself. It will make a delicious ceviche.”

Will follows Hannibal into the kitchen and places the fish in the ice chest. He watches as Hannibal begins to slice up limes and onion for the ceviche, still detecting that sliver sharp annoyance in his movements. Finally, with a sigh, Hannibal says, “It is good you caught a fish today, as it seems there is no pork to be had in this town at any price.”

Food shortages were unfortunately common this far away from Havana. It wasn’t the first time Hannibal had returned home from the butcher’s empty handed. “Oh?”

Hannibal’s lips thin into a reptilian line. The muscles of his back tense beneath the thin fabric of his dress shirt, reminding Will of a cat of the jungle about to strike. “I think the butcher took especial pleasure in denying me,” Hannibal says.

Will locks eyes with Hannibal. In another time, another place, the butcher would have paid dearly for Hannibal’s displeasure and the larder would be full. He doesn’t ask what Hannibal plans to do about this petty outrage—he isn’t sure he wants to know.

“I’m going to take a shower,” is all Will says.

Will washes the smell of fish and sweat from his body and the salt from his hair. If he were to look down, he’d see a fine collection of scars, some still pink. He doesn’t look down.

After his shower, Will slips between crisp cotton sheets, still smelling of lavender from the laundress. He’d gotten up before dawn to fish and it wasn’t unusual for him to take a midday siesta. It’s hot and humid outside, drippy and moist in a way that reminds him of summer in New Orleans without air conditioning. But it’s always cool in their bedroom, some magical feat of Cuban colonial engineering,

Just as he is drifting off to sleep, he feels Hannibal’s weight shift the mattress, feels a muscular arm slip about him and smells the scent of his cologne—sandalwood and amber. It smells expensive, in a way that is a comfort to him, that Hannibal is still _Hannibal_ even here, after everything. With the warmth of Hannibal’s body against him, Will feels his muscles relax into sleep.

*

There were other days, other nights, when Will’s body ached with need, when his flesh hungered, and he would pull Hannibal against him, skin to skin, the pair of them sweaty and slick in the tropical air. Will would press down hard upon him, gasping and desperate, ashamed of how good, how _beautiful_ it felt, and yet unable to restrain himself. And sometimes, just the opposite, he flipped on his stomach and begged for Hannibal to take him, fill him until there was nothing else, his body all sinful pleasure and pure sensation.

But even after all this time, Hannibal never came to him, never initiated. He never initiated the other thingeither. He who had always put his thumb on the scale of Will’s becoming was suddenly cautious, reticent. And Will found himself reticent too, afraid to upset the uneasy balance of whatever they had.

*

Their days and nights have a kind of routine to them. After his midday nap, Will eats a small meal and putters in his workshop, tinkering with various boat motors. Due to the embargo the _Orfeo_ is currently running on a motor that he's pretty sure used to belong to a Czechoslovakian lawnmower and could use an upgrade. Hannibal preps dinner in the kitchen and sometimes he sees patients. Medical care is free in Cuba, but one can make more money driving a cab for the tourists these days, leaving Santa Ynez without its doctor. They have dinner together. Some days they talk of everything, and some days nothing at all.

As Will washes and puts away the last of the dishes, Hannibal asks, “A walk on the plaza?”

This, too, has become customary, their evening promenade as the sun goes down. The town square is not very large, but there is a fine white church at the center dedicated to the saint from which the town got its name, its twin bell towers shaped like dollops of meringue. Hannibal strolls along the plaza, dressed head to toe in white linen, a panama hat with a black band atop his head, looking every inch the wealthy _don_ the locals take him to be. It must be his special talent, to be at ease wherever he is—or at least appear that way. Will’s never been at ease anywhere, he thinks, sweating in his guayabera.

And it’s hardly a surprise at all when their walk is interrupted by a stray soccer ball, which Hannibal effortlessly traps, stops, and kicks back to a grateful group of children with all of the ease of a World Cup athlete.

Will smiles unexpectedly. “I didn’t know you played soccer.”

Hannibal’s mouth turns up in a bemused half smile, eyes lit up with a secret memory. “Fútbol and food are the two universal languages.” He gestures to an open café table near the plaza. “Let’s have a drink.”

Will sits, watching Hannibal watch the boys at their game, wondering about the childhood Hannibal so rarely speaks of. The waitress brings them their drinks, a bottle of the local cerveza for Will and some kind of special cocktail for Hannibal that appears to be coconut milk garnished with nutmeg and a half moon of pineapple. She smiles, a row of broad teeth, when Hannibal takes a sip and compliments her on the drink.

Once she is well out of earshot, Will voices the concern that had been needling him since the morning. “When I came back today there was someone watching me at the dock. A man. Government official maybe?”

Hannibal’s lips quirk in an odd gesture of annoyance. “I’ll have a word with the local magistrate. I pay quite a bit of money for us to go unseen.”

“Maybe he thought I was smuggling or something. Like drugs.” The nervous knot in Will’s stomach only tightens. He feels so damn conspicuous here. He dislikes placing their lives in the hands of the corrupt officials Hannibal bribes.

Hannibal leans back in his chair and nearly sighs. “They do not fear what you will bring in, Will, but who you might take away. They monitor the boats here very closely.”

“Oh,” Will says, deflated. “I could go out less then, I guess.”

Hannibal takes a rueful sip of his drink. “Just another day in the Workers’ Paradise.”

The uncharacteristic bitterness in Hannibal’s voice prompts him to ask. “Do you even like it here?”

“The lack of extradition makes it the best location for us.”

Will knows an evasion when he hears one. “That’s not what I asked.”

This time Hannibal really does sigh. “There are days Cuba feels like Lithuania with better weather. I do not expect you to understand.”

That Eastern Bloc upbringing he so rarely speaks of rears its head. “You experienced shortages of food and things as a child.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“Yes.”

“And as an adult, you lived a life of conspicuous consumption.” Will lets out a wry laugh. “Bedelia must have had a field day with that.”

“I believe she considered it too obvious an observation to mention,” Hannibal says in a prim tone, one that aims to put an end to the conversation.

“If you’re not happy here, we could go someplace else,” Will says softly. “Havana maybe.”

“There are too many tourists in Havana these days.”

“Not American ones.”

“No. But plenty of Italians who might remember _Il Mostro_.” Hannibal adjusts his hat on his head, and looks out from underneath its shaded brim. “I’m trying to safeguard our freedom, Will.”

Will reaches across the table to grasp his hand. “But you’re not free here.” _And neither am I._

Hannibal squeezes his fingers gently before letting go, his expression soft. “Perhaps there is no such thing as true freedom, only different degrees of unfreedom.” He smiles sadly. “I would choose to be unfree with you.”

He looks at him with such sincerity, it makes Will’s heart want to break. All of the roiling emotions he’d been suppressing for months well up inside him in one great confusing wave. “You’re changed here. The butcher, the man from this morning…you would have dealt differently with them before.”

Hannibal grows quiet. He looks sadder, older. It is more than just the grey in his hair, but something tired behind his eyes. “Does that disappoint you?”

 _I’m not sure_ is the answer Will is afraid of giving. “Why?” is all he can ask.

An unshed tear glimmers in Hannibal’s dark eye. “Because for the first time I have a life I would fear losing—my life with you.”

Now it is Will’s turn to feel unspeakably emotional. He had almost gloated once over having changed Hannibal, at having him under his influence, unawares. To have Hannibal willingly change for him—it was the forbidden wish he’d dare not speak, not even in the silence of his heart. Hot tears roll down his cheeks, unbidden, and Will roughly wipes them away with his hands.

Hannibal reaches out and lays a hand on his arm, a loose touch of comfort that warms and calms. “All right, Will?”

“Yeah, I’m all right.”

They sit in companionate silence for a minute. Will downs the last of his beer, which has already begun to warm and go flat in the heat. Hannibal leans back in his chair meditatively, closing his eyes for a moment, drinking in the sounds of the children’s game and the soft salsa music being played in the café, preserving them perhaps in his memory palace, like grooves on a record.

“I feel so out of place here—too visible, too seen,” Will confesses finally. “Maybe we could go somewhere where we’d both be more free. Less free in terms of risk, but less conspicuous, too.”

“A life in a cage is no life at all, no matter how beautiful the cage,” Hannibal says, visibly chewing on Will’s proposition. “If we took the proper precautions, perhaps.”

“Would Chiyo be willing to lay a false trail—send the FBI looking for us in Japan or some place?”

Hannibal smiles, savoring the conspiracy. “I think she could be persuaded.” He tosses a few notes on the table, including a generous tip in American dollars for their waitress. “Tell me, Will, have you ever been to Argentina?” he asks, holding out his open palm.

“Never,” Will says as he takes Hannibal’s hand, letting it swing in the air playfully, suddenly forty pounds lighter. “Will I have to learn to tango?”

“It would be a shame not to,” Hannibal says, pulling him in for a brief but firm kiss that tastes of rum and coconut and the promise of things to come.

**Author's Note:**

> You won't find Santa Ynez on a map, I made it up. It's a composite of several different Cuban beach towns.
> 
> Happy Chocolate Box!


End file.
